You state in your decision that you intend to give average points on the basis that at least two more races are sailed but if not you will give redress in only one of the two races with the other one being scored as the boat finished.

Is a race excluded from the scores? You could certainly write that if X races are completed, the boat gets redress for races 2 and 3 while if fewer than X races are completed, the boat gets redress for race 2. That would seem to be in keeping with Case 116 if you kept the percentage of redress less than 50% of the races counting in the scores.

I think there are a couple issues here.

1. The language in Case 116 requires that more than half of a boat's race scores are based on her finishing positions in races that she starts. Thus granting average points as redress in just one race means that the boat must have been scored based on her finishing position in at least three races. Two is insufficient. And thus to give average points in two races, the boat must have been scored based on her finishing position in at least five races. So the language in the decision looks something like:

   "As soon as Boat A completes races 4, and 5 she shall be scored in race 2 her average points of races 1, 4, 5 and 6. Redress is denied for race 3."

2. If the boat requests redress for race five, hopefully the jury remembers the boat. But if they don't, or if a different panel hears the case, fails to look up the boats previous scores and grants redress, it would look something like:

   Boat A shall be scored in race 5 her average points of all other races excluding race 5.

3. After the fleet finishes five races, the scorer is going to throw out the boat's worst score. Case 116 requires that, after excluding her worst score, more than half of a boat's race scores are based on her finishing positions in races that she starts. But the instructions from the jury don't take this into account. If there had only been five races, redress should not have been granted at all.

I'm wondering how others may be dealing with this. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to do something like:

Boat A shall be granted redress for races 2 and 3 based on her average points of all races excluding any races scored as average points. However, more than half the boat's race scores in this series must be based on her finishing position in races she starts, and any grant of redress in excess of this amount shall not be applied to the boat's score.

This grants the scorer the authority to score the boat properly. Thoughts?

Paul,

I think that looks good. So, in Race 5 her finishing position is a 3rd, but is awarded redress in Race 5 and scored a 2nd. With your wording, the 3rd from Race 5 can still be used to calculate the avg for Race 2 and 3 based on how I read it.

Ang

I think we are in danger of over complicating this. Why not just say "Boat A shall be granted redress in races 2 and 3 subject to the restrictions imposed by WS Case 116"

After all I don't think there is any dispute over what we would do,(we don't have any choice as WS cases are binding) only on how we would phrase the decision.

Bill,

I think there may be subtleties in WS Case 116 which might not be evident to the scorer. Paul seems just to be trying to short-circuit scoring correction iterations by spelling it out.

Yours can work too (maybe with an aside with the scorer pointing out the fine-points and pitfalls of WS 116?)

I think your solution might need a couple more words in it though .. maybe adding the fact that 'average score' shall be used (which is implied by the WS116 reference, but not stated) and the order of the races for which redress should be granted, in the event score-granting is restricted by WS 116? Something like ...?

"Boat A shall be granted redress first in race 2 and secondly in race 3 based upon the average score of the other races, subject to the restrictions imposed by WS Case 116"

Even with that, couldn't there still be leeway that the PC would want to spell out?

For instance, let's make this a 11 race regatta instead of 6 and our boat starts/finishes all the rest of them. How about we borrow Grant's phrase and "get the situation wet" and look at it? Here are the scores for the regatta and toss a 2nd redress into the mix in race 8.
..

1. 4
2. Redress #1 (DNF)
3. Redress #1 (DNS)
4. 10
5. 5
6. 8
7. 10
8. Redress #2 (finish position 4 and evidence is established that she lost 2 places)
9. 5
10. 2
11. 5

Let's assume boat convinces the PC they deserve Redress #2.
..

1. How should Race 8 be handled?
2. Is there ambiguity from the Scorer's perspective looking at WS116 whether or not the redress score or the finish score in R8 is used when calculating R2 and R3.

Ang

PS .. the above scenario was intended to beg a question. If it doesn't and you can make changes to it so that it does, please feel free. If not, maybe there is no question to beg in the first place, which is an interesting outcome as well.

Bill, we used your approach at the last event and sent a judge to the scorer after to train them on case 116. There is something to be said for the shorthand approach as the scorer is still going to need coaching even if you try to spell it out. I was just hoping someone else had a silver bullet for this problem...